#London: As Seen On TV No.2: Are You Being Served

As a self-confessed London nerd, I love little more than a bit of London Spotting on the small screen. "It's Bow Lane!" "Look! It's St Bartholomew the Great!" "That's not Scotland Yard it's Senate House!"

Yes, watching TV with me can be a most annoying experience.

In this new blog series I will be calling in at London locations featured in London-set TV shows – dramas and sitcoms mainly, but I'll throw some TV history into the mix from time-to-time.

If you have a favourite London-set TV show, drop me a line at the usual address and I'll try to include your fave and I'll be asking my lovely London Walks colleagues to chip in their suggestions, too.

The name for this new series is – what else? – London: As Seen On TV.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about LuckyMan, the thrilling London-set drama currently running on Sky1. It started the
ball rolling on a new occasional series here at The DC and the first response
was from loyal Daily Constitutionalist and self-confessed Britophile Veebs in
BC…

@londonwalks Yay!
AYBS? is my favourite show of all time! I started watching it when I was little
& still watch it frequently now <3

Old school. How's that for a phrase to encapsulate the BBC sitcom
Are You Being Served? From 1972 - 1985 this sitcom set in a department store drew huge ratings in
the UK, but was also a big hit overseas, particularly in Canada (hi Veebs!),
Israel and Australia. It still enjoys reruns here in the UK and on PBS is the US.

From tales of Mrs Slocombe's pet cat –
invariably referred to as "my pussy" – to Mr Humphries and his camp
cries of "I'm free!" when queried as to his availability to help out
a customer, AYBS is firmly in the seaside postcard tradition of English humour.

Suffice to say, no entendre is left
un-partnered for very long.

It was created by prolific British comedy
writers Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft – the team behind 'Allo 'Allo (we'll leave that one to our chums at Paris Walks!) – and enjoys a London connection
insomuch as Lloyd, when a young man, spent a brief time working at Simpsons of
Piccadilly – once the largest menswear store in Britain. It is said that his time there
inspired the series.

Simpsons closed in 1999 and is now home to
Waterstones bookshop…

… you can find it here…

And just yesterday there was some good news for Are You Being Served? fans – the series is to enjoy a reboot later this year as part of the Landmark
Sitcom season on the BBC, celebrating 60 years of the genre in the UK. Full
story posted on Chortle yesterday: www.chortle.co.uk

In the meantime, here's the trailer for the
big screen version of the sitcom from 1977…